Friday, March 19, 2010

Odds and Ends 3/19/10

Quiboloy wishes presidency for Madrigal

SACRED MOUNTAIN, Davao City – Senator Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal was on Cloud Nine after Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, head of the religious sect "Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above Every Name" said he wished she would win the presidential elections and cited her for her "crusade" against corruption.

No, he ain't kidding. Expect the loaves, rather the votes for Jamby, multiply. Only problem is, when you multiply zero by 5000, it will still be zero.

Meanwhile, Aquino and Villar seem to have gone into confession.
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Singing fishermen land a whopper of a record deal

The Fisherman's Friends have signed with Universal Music -- whose roster includes Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse and Take That -- for an estimated one million pounds (1.12 million euros, 1.53 million dollars), news reports said.

"We don't really know what to expect, to be honest -- we're just making it up as we go along," said fisherman Baritone Brown, one of the group's members who are mostly in their 50s.

Watch out, mate. Listen to the Mexican fishermen first.
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French mother sentenced to 15 years for killing six babies

COUTANCES-A court on Thursday sentenced a French mother to 15 years in jail for smothering or strangling to death six of her newborn babies...

How horrifying and how sad. But how come in France, you can get away with smothering 12-week-old babies to death?
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Nuns Backstab Bishops on Health Care, Demand Bill's Passage

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 17, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The health care reform controversy appears to have brought serious disagreements within the U.S. Catholic Church out into the open. Just days after the Catholic Health Association endorsed the Senate health-care bill, the Catholic Leadership Conference of Women Religious has also now publicly broken ranks with the US Catholic Bishops, demanding that the House of Representatives pass the abortion-promoting legislation.

In the book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI talks about the first temptation: "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread". Apparently, these nuns see bread where there is only stone.
Perhaps Prof. Monsod and Sec. Cabral see stones in their statistics too.

Here is an abbreviated excerpt regarding the first temptation:

"At the heart of all temptations is the act of pushing God aside because we perceive him as secondary, if not actually superfluous and annoying, in comparison with all the apparently far more urgent matters that fill our lives. Constructing a world by our own lights, without reference to God, building on our own foundations, refusing to acknowledge the reality of anything beyond the political and material, while setting God aside as an illusion - that is the temptation that threatens us in many varied forms. Moral posturing is part and parcel of temptation. It does not invite us directly to do evil, no - that would be far too blatant. It pretends to show us a better way, where we throw ourselves into the work of actually making the world a better place. What is real is what is right there in front of us: power and bread. By comparison, the things of God fade into unreality, into a secondary world that no one really needs."
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Pope's absolutely right. That's exactly what's happening. It's time we all open our eyes and see what really is at stake here.

The pro-condom crowd is trying to sell their side by painting it all in rosy optimistic colors. They have tons of statistics and are brazen enough to promise great benefits including families becoming financially better off. But what are they really selling? Uncertainty. All the rosy promises are just that - possibilities. They cannot really prove that all of their rosy predictions will come to pass. They are asking people to take a gamble. Of course they won't say it that way - they'll call it taking an intelligent stand based on irrefutable medical statistics.

As the Pope said, "it pretends to show us a better way,..."

The contras try hard to disprove the pro's arguments and refute their statistics by presenting their own set of counter statistics. Those passionate enough will paint a tough pessimistic picture to counter the rosy ones. They have fallen into the same trap as the pros - they are arguing for another set of uncertainties and are asking people to bet on another horse.

The contras have to open their eyes. The Church has already ruled on these issues so why engage in debate over it? To a Catholic the issue is closed. The Church's stand is clear and you might even say it's become part of the repository of truth. The Church's position is guided by the Holy Spirit. There is no uncertainty in this. The Holy Spirit is not an ambigious thing susceptible to statistical measures. The Holy Spirit is sure and its guidance is truth.

As Catholics, why should we opt for betting on uncertainties when we are already gifted with something certain? Why exchange something sure for something that isn't?

From a certain perspective Monsod's article is perhaps even more dangerous. It reads logical, balanced and fair. But it also re-opens the issue. This we have to guard against. If you take it seriously you would find yourself weighing the pros and cons of the issue. When that happens you would have opened again what the Church had closed. And that position raises a bunch of uncomfortable secondary questions like "Would I still be a good Catholic if I don't readily accept the Church's position and engage in debate over this?" Let us not be faithless - not just in the sense of not being true to our commitment to Christ but also in the sense of being lacking in faith.

As the Pope said, "the act of pushing God aside...we perceive Him as secondary."

The battlefield is not condoms and contraceptives. It's the Truth we hold, our values and beliefs. That is what is at stake. The real issue is not what the debaters are spouting about. They would have you bark up the wrong tree while secretly attacking what you truly hold dear. Let's not be deceived.

It's not about the optimists half-full glass nor the pessimist's half-empty one. The glass is actually full, it's just of a different size. Don't empty it by trading a sure thing for uncertain ones.
-TE

WillyJ said...

"The glass is actually full"

I like that. The full quote from Psalm 23:5 goes: "You set a table before me as my enemies watch; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows."

The glass is not only full, it overflows and runneth over.